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Another busy week – with the weather ranging from sunny and beautiful to freezing cold. We were able to use the big sandpit again this week on the sunny days which the children love and allows more children to have more space , to explore their own ideas for play, and for more children to establish co-operative play. We do go outside for part of each day regardless of the weather - as long as the children are dressed warmly – fresh air is good for us! On the really cold days we had a jumping rope for the children to jump over - the adult holding the rope varying the rope as to how it was held or moved, so the children needed to jump either higher or longer – some children were a little wary but soon developed confidence – others were very capable, all children were encouraged to have a turn, but not all wanted to. This required the children to control their bodies and estimate what kind of jumping they need to do. They were then required to run all around the path back to the starting point, and wait till it was their turn again, so we soon warmed up. Relay running using a baton to pass on to the next child is also a very popular activity and warms us up., this also requires turn taking, respect for others and being able to wait. We also set up a soccer skills course with witches hats, for the children to dribble the ball around – some children were quite skilled.

The cold damp weather has produced some interesting toadstools and varieties of fungus growing in our playground – the children are very interested in these, and we will search each day for more, we have a fungus book to try to identify different fungi. We have talked about how we are able to eat mushrooms we buy in the shops, but not to eat toadstools or fungus we find.

We have had some amazing buildings built with both the indoor and outdoor blocks – the children are very imaginative , and often incorporate other things with the blocks to carry through their ideas, such as telephones and computer boards for an office, mats and tea sets for houses, and other additions of whatever they can find to follow through their ideas and decorate their buildings. Packing away these blocks takes a long time and a lot of effort, but the children realize that this is part of the process and is easier with teamwork when we all help, especially when we use the big trolley to move the big blocks outside.

We carried out an “Emergency Evacuation” practice this week – which requires the children to come to me immediately when I blow my whistle, and stay with me , we then walk down to the collection point at the gate in the fence near the shed and then mark the roll to make sure everybody is present. This is something we will do regularly so the children become familiar with what they need to do if there should be a real emergency. We talked about what an emergency was, things that could be dangerous, the phone number to call for emergencies (000), and what the operator will ask them . This is something that you could also do at home.

We have also discussed “ friendship” with the children, as sometimes competition arises about who is whose best friend, and can lead to children becoming upset – we have stressed that at Kindergarten we don’t have to have a “best” friend – we have lots of friends, and we will continue to talk about this.